Ux1 Or Ux3 Postal Cards Questions

Hope this is the right area to make this post...


I've accumulated a large group of postal cards over the years and am now starting to go through them; I find myself woefully ignorant in this area of postal history and could use some help.

I'll start with the three cards shown below, I see that they were issued with either a large or small watermark (UX1 or UX3). How do you find watermark on thick cards such as these? I tried using strong light and even used direct sunlight but I can't see any way to view a watermark on card stock this thick.

The first card shown shows a May 8 date but I cannot determine the year. Someone has written UXA1 on it but I cannot be sure. Scott shows earliest known usage as May 10-12. Is there any way to determine the year from the postmark? Anyone have ideas on what that little square is above the date stamp?

Thank you in advance for any input,
Don





Edit: fixed Scott number mistakes

I'm not familiar enough with these very early postal cards to help much, but to simplify things do drop the "A" designation. The cards are UX1 (large watermark) or UX3 (small watermark). For whatever reason, there is no UX2 listed in the Scott Catalog.

The second postal card scanned (with purple writing) has a date handwritten on the reverse as June 30, 1873. That card (by default) would have to be a UX1 (large watermark), as the UX3 postal card wasn't issued until a week later on July 6, 1873.

The purple handwriting is fantastic!. Sorry, I have no other input than that. I have a few of these cards and haven't identified any of them with certainty.

The UPSS's U. S. Postal Card Catalog reports an ERP of June 5, 1873 for UX3, with no known official FDOI. UX1 FDOI is May 12, 1873.

The large watermark is 60 x 90 mm.
The small watermark is 55 x 38 mm.

Lots of varieties are listed based on watermark orientation and a bunch of other things.

The PDF version of the catalog is available for just $13 buckadingdongs. Everybody should own one! ;-)

Interesting info.

By the way, do you know the story behind the Scott UX2 postal card? Was it de-listed by Scott some years ago, or was there never a UX2 variety? It's interesting because the previous owner of the third scanned postal card shown above pencilled in UX2 on it, which would suggest it was a legitimate catalog number at some point in the past.

wt1, my 1958 SSC. doesn't have a listing for UX2. So even in 58 no go on UX2 does anyone have an earlier Scott cat. to reference?

In the 1945 Specialized, UX1 was unwatermarked, UX2 was the large watermark, and UX3 is the small watermark.

Saw the ~2005 edition, hardcover, brand spanking new condition and, being an Old School Dead Trees guy, asked the price. U$D 65, no Bitcoins.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Technically, this should be in the Back of the Book section.

UX2 was determined to be a variety of UX3 and was delisted by Scott. I am not clear on why Scott did not renumber the postal cards.

ikey pikey: you seem to have jumped off track. What are you talking about?

What part of 'catalog' did you not understand?

Cheers,

/s/ikeyPikey

Dear ikey, I am on 5 of the UPSS catalog editorial committees so I certainly understand many parts of catalog. However, I thought we were discussing UX1, UX2, and UX3. It is not clear WHICH CATALOG you mean.

Okay, let me quote Thomas Galloway, from this thread, *again*:




Now, let me quote me:




It is hard for me to imagine that any fair-minded person could fail to understand my point, but let me spell it out for you in words of one syllable: "Tom is right. Buy PDF. Do not wait or hope to find book cheap."

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

If we are talking bitcoin vs. dollars, give me dollars, cash money. It's bad enough I have to use PayPal.